Marriage Fruits of the Spirit: PATIENCE

By: Jenifer Metzger

Today is the fourth week in the Fruits of the Spirit in Marriage series. To read the previous week's, click on love, joy and peace.

Today's fruit is patience.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, 

kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Galatians 5:22-23

Patience is something I lack. Something many of us probably lack. Whether it's waiting on our guy to take out the trash, put his shoes away, play catch with the kids, 'grow up,' or take the lead as the spiritual head of the family, waiting is hard. Women often want what we want when we want it. 

We want our husband to be a mature husband, father and leader. No more of this playing around, kid stuff. Time to grow up and act like a man. But what if God made him that way? God gave your guy a great sense of humor and created him to be fun-loving. Stop waiting impatiently for him to grow up and embrace him as he is. Practice patience with him and enjoy him now.

When it comes to spiritual matters, we don't want to wait for God to do a work in our husband. Yet that's exactly what we have to do. Just because we want our husband to lead family devotions at dinner each day and lead a couples devotion before bed each night and want him to start today, doesn't mean he is ready for that. He may not be in the same place spiritually that you are, or maybe he simply isn't comfortable with that level of leadership yet. Instead of being disappointed in him or nagging him to lead this way, we need to bring him to the Father. Pray that God would do His work in our man. Pray that we would be the kind of encourager he needs without being overbearing. Practice patience with him and pray for him.

When you feel impatient with your guy, remember patience is a fruit of the Spirit and we through Jesus, we can be patient.